Tough Choices and Making It Work
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Satoshi finds an unusual method that might end the curse. Daisuke isn't sure how he feels about it. It's crack treated seriously.
1. The Thought

_AN:This was a fill for the commentfic community on LJ for JordannaMorgan. It became a lot longer than planned and eventually I just decided not to keep going to its logical conclusion because it was long enough already and that could be left to the imagination what happened from the point I end it at. Prompt: DNAngel, any: the only way to end the curse on the Niwa and Hikari families is for the two bloodlines to become one._

 ** _NOTE: Involves eventual use of a magic artifact by Satoshi for a sex change. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't read beyond the second part._**

* * *

"What do you mean that's the only way to end the curse?!" Daisuke sputtered. In his head, Dark was tense and listening with his full attention. "Mom never mentioned anything about that!"

"I'm not surprised," Satoshi murmured. He flipped a page of a yellowed, leather-bound book. "It was something no one particularly wanted to talk of. In fact, I myself only learned about it recently while reading through one of my ancestor's journals."

"Satoshi," Daisuke said hesitantly, "are you sure your ancestor knew what he was talking about? He wasn't…crazy or anything?"

Satoshi lifted an eyebrow. "No, Daisuke, this particular ancestor was not crazy, or at least no crazier than any of my family has ever been. He was the grandson of the first cursed ancestor and as such was much more aware of the curse's specifics than later generations." He lifted the book to show a page. It had cramped, handwritten notes in a language Daisuke couldn't read and what vaguely resembled a family tree. "He wanted to end the curse with his generation, but unsurprisingly, no one was interested in following through. As his father had murdered one of your ancestors the generation before, animosity between families was very tense."

"But." Daisuke flailed. "But marriage?"

"It's a logical solution," Satoshi said. "Dark and Krad are two halves of a whole; what better way to return them to their whole than to merge the bloodlines into a single line with a child from that union."

"But the curse wouldn't be stopped! The kid would just have Dark and Krad both in their head and that would be even worse!" Dark shuddered at the thought of being stuck forever alongside Krad in some kid's head. _It's bad enough having to get used to a new person each generation,_ Dark said. Daisuke felt a little put out by that. It wasn't his fault he hadn't known about Dark before Dark woke inside him.

Satoshi shook his head. "The theory was that Dark and Krad wouldn't be separate entities anymore, but one being, Kokuyoku. It's not clear if it would be Kokuyoku inhabiting the descendant's body alone or if it would be a similar situation to how our bodies hold Dark and Krad, but that was more or less what would happen. From there it would have been possible to return Kokuyoku to the artwork he originated from."

Daisuke felt even more horrified. "If Kokuyoku was the only one in possession of a descendant's body, wouldn't they be killing their child?"

Satoshi smiled, humorless. "For a family who created monsters for pleasure and had no compulsions on letting them loose on the rest of humanity, is that really so surprising?"

"Maybe not on your side of the family, but I couldn't see mine doing that!"

"Couldn't you?"

Daisuke thought about how his mother and grandfather had reacted to Satoshi at first even though there were so many signs that Satoshi was unwell. He couldn't see them killing a child. He could see them destroying an artwork that they felt was too dangerous. If they looked at the child as nothing more than the artwork… He felt sick. Dark was disturbingly still in the back of his mind. "Okay," he said softly. He took the book from Satoshi's hands, lingering over the lines and words. After a while, he could make out his family name in one of the lined diagrams. "So why didn't anyone ever do it?"

"Simple," Satoshi took the book back. "Either there was too much hatred at the time as in the journal's author's time, or there wasn't anyone of the main family line of opposite sexes to make a union possible."

"And it had to be an actual child-producing union, not just…I don't know, a symbolic metaphorical one?"

"According to the theory anyway." He frowned. "No other forms of unions were tested. Somewhere around the sixth generation from the first ancestor, the union theory was thrown away and never mentioned again, though I believe that to be because the grudge started flowing both ways in earnest and Krad's host of the time was very mentally unstable even before Krad manifested."

"This is starting to sound like Romeo and Juliet," Daisuke said. "You'd need two lovers dying and ending the main lines to end the feud."

Satoshi snorted. "Well, us both dying would probably end the curse too. So far as anyone knows, Krad and Dark can only pass down through direct descendants. For the last six generations, our familial lines have been only children, so there's only very very distant cousins in existence out there." He shut the book. "At any rate, we have once again lost the chance to end the curse using that method since our generation is once again the same sex."

"Is that part of the curse too, do you think?" Daisuke asked. "That there had to be someone to manifest Dark if Krad could manifest or vice versa? Because your mom was the only descendant when my mom was born too, and so the last generation didn't have Dark or Krad manifest at all."

"It's possible."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to find another route." Daisuke sighed and slumped against the table. There were various other Hikari books and journals on it where Satoshi had been going through them bit by bit in hopes of finding anything useful. Krad was surprisingly quiet during all of this; either Satoshi had his emotions on lockdown or he was using some artifact for suppressing him again. Daisuke was grateful for it though since it meant he had a chance to talk to Satoshi without ending the conversation with preventing his own murder.

"Mm," Satoshi pulled up another book. "Most likely. Although…"

"…what?"

"There is always the option of testing if a symbolic union of some sort would be enough. We're the closest either of our families has been in centuries." He didn't look up from the journal as he flipped it open, skimming the pages. Daisuke had a weirdly unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"…Are you suggesting we get married just to see if that ends the curse?"

"It would have to be more than a mere hand wave of symbolism for it to have any chance of working—after all, our emotional states are directly linked to the curse, and as such we would have to be emotionally united." He paused. "Possibly physically."

Daisuke's brain bluescreened, Dark swearing up a storm while Satoshi watched without expression. "Excuse me?" Daisuke asked finally deciding he must have heard something wrong.

"Well, there are many ways of defining a union."

"I'm—that's—you're…" It felt like his face was on fire. He hadn't blushed this much since—since—.

"Hell no!" Dark screeched, assuming control of their body. He jabbed a finger at Satoshi's face. "Over my dead body!"

Satoshi smirked and pushed Dark's had away. "So hostile." He turned back to the books. "It was a joke, Dark. No need to get up in arms about it."

"Like hell were you joking," Dark growled.

"Oh, I'm quite serious that it could be a way of potentially ending the curse for this generation, though it is unlikely to work for the next one." Satoshi tossed a book away like it wasn't a century old with poor binding. It bounced and laid crooked with a few pages sticking out on top of the other discarded volumes. Daisuke curled around himself and tried to block out his thoughts and the reality beyond the space in his head he went when Dark was in control. "I wasn't going to suggest that we take that path. In all honesty, it would probably get us killed if we tried it, between our parasites and our own cluelessness."

"Who the heck are you calling a parasite?!"

"I think it's quite accurate. Both you and Krad exist using a host's energy to exist and manifest while slowly choking off their ability to thrive. Do you have another term for that kind of situation?" Satoshi was still smirking, but he was only giving Dark half his attention.

Daisuke felt Dark's frustration palpably. "Fine, where is your 'parasite,' Hiwatari? You'd think he'd be raging against that label too."

"Actually, Krad could care less about what I think of him. We hate each other mutually." Satoshi squinted at something scribbled in the margins of a manuscript, bound together with what looked like twine. "And he's asleep."

"Bullshit."

"I wouldn't have had this meeting if I wasn't sure we could have it without it becoming a duel to the death. Now sit down." Satoshi waved a hand at a chair. "Pick something and start reading; I'm sure you still remember how to read the languages these are written in. You might as well help find a potential cure to our situation that you aren't disgusted by."

"It's the principle of things," Dark grumbled. He leaned over the table. There were dialects he hadn't seen in a century among the mess. In it he vaguely recognized the handwriting of Hikari Yuuto. He hadn't hated that particular host as much as most of the Hikari. And Yuuto had lived long enough to have more than one child, so maybe he'd tried something to keep only one of his from having to deal with Krad's particular brand of sadism.

In the safety of his mind, Daisuke uncurled from his embarrassed ball and hovered closer to the surface. He heard flickers of Dark translating—less translating than the meaning coming through Dark's subconscious, but close enough. He wondered if there was really any point in going through these journals. No one had broken the curse in all the generations ahead of them. There wasn't really much chance that they would stumble on something the others hadn't found. But they had the advantage of being the first of their families in years to work together, perhaps ever, so there could be something that one of them had noticed that the other family hadn't. He'd have to see if Grandpa had anything similar to these journals that he could look through. They had to find something or Satoshi would…

He shook his head. They'd find some way. (He ignored the tiny voice in the back of his head saying he'd probably even give Satoshi's crazy idea a try if it would mean Satoshi lived. It was the same part of his brain that questioned whether Dark had conveniently taken over or if he had changed because he'd dared to picture Satoshi in a more than friendly manner for a split second. Daisuke didn't really look too closely at that part of his brain because he never knew what to do with what he found there.) There had to be more than one way to break a curse after all.

"Huh, this journal's even older than the other one. This ancestor had the guts to make an artwork that would change someone's sex. But he was too prideful to use it on himself, and of course his Niwa counterpart wanted nothing to do with that. Interesting."

Daisuke's brain went back to a gibbering mess of embarrassment. Satoshi had to be doing this on purpose.

"Not. Happening." Dark held the book he was reading in front of his face.

Across the table, Satoshi laughed. Even in his embarrassment, Daisuke was glad to hear it.


	2. The Question

"So, if I hypothetically used that artwork to become a woman, would you end the curse with me?" Satoshi asked out of the blue over a week since they'd looked at the journals.

Daisuke promptly fell off the bench he was leaning against. "Ow!" He caught his balance with his face, more out of habit than lack of reflexes—they were in public for goodness's sake. "What the heck Hiwatari-kun?"

Satoshi looked unrepentant. If anything he was judging Daisuke for his clumsiness. "It is an option." He waited for Daisuke to say something, but Daisuke's brain still wasn't working. "We still haven't found any other one that doesn't end with us both dead."

"But—emotional connection—said we needed—more than symbolic—children! You'd have to have children!"

One eyebrow went up over the rim of his glasses. "Yes. That is more or less the point."

"You waited until Dark was bored and asleep on purpose to spring that on me." Daisuke pulled himself back onto the bench. Satoshi handed him the sketchbook he'd been sharing moments before Satoshi dropped that bomb.

"Was there any other way to discuss this?"

"Probably not." Daisuke sighed. He looked the sketchbook over. Other than a bit of dust on the back it hadn't ruined any of his sketches falling into the dirt. "Did your ancestor ever test if that art worked how it was supposed to? Does it still exist? And if it does, what would happen to Krad? I thought Dark and Krad couldn't manifest in women."

"He can't. But then, even if I was physically female, it might still count since I'm the same person and he's manifested in me before." Satoshi shrugged and picked up Daisuke's pencil from the dirt too. The lead had broken in the fall. "If it did keep him from manifesting it might buy me a bit more time though." From his pocket, he pulled out a small folding knife and started cutting the pencil back into a workable point with quick, practiced motions.

"You're really planning on going through with it aren't you?" Daisuke's stomach swooped uncomfortably. Satoshi was…Satoshi. Quiet. Serious. Unquestionably male even though there had been that time where he'd pulled off being a woman well enough to seduce Dark. He tried to imagine Satoshi as a woman and his mind came up blank.

"I'm running out of time, Niwa." Satoshi rolled the pencil in his hand. It was sharp enough to sketch detail work again if Daisuke wanted to. "That sort of change… Our bodies already change to a different form. It can't be any worse than that."

Daisuke wanted to protest that changing physical sex was a lot different than just becoming a slightly different man, but he didn't really know what transforming was like for Satoshi. It always looked painful, so maybe it really would be easier to be a woman for him. Would it hurt to change that too?

"I will let you know when I plan to try," Satoshi said, passing him back the pencil. He folded the knife away again. "Just in case something goes wrong."

Daisuke's heart hurt at the thought. "It will work," he mumbled. "It has to." If it would let Satoshi live longer…if it would suppress Krad…it would be worth it, right? So long as Satoshi lived.

Satoshi smiled. He always has the same smile when he turned it on Daisuke; reluctantly fond and a little bit baffled like he could never understand where Daisuke's optimism came from. Maybe even a bit wistful like he wanted to understand it. "And if it works?"

If it worked, then the only method of ending the curse that wouldn't end with either of them dead became available again. Daisuke felt a blush burn its way across his face. He was dating Riku, what was he doing thinking about…about a hypothetically female Satoshi in that way? But…if he did, and there was a child, they wouldn't end up fighting the Hikari and Krad. They wouldn't know Dark either and that made something deep in him ache—there would be no Dark anymore, and no, he didn't want that—but things would be as they were supposed to be.

Satoshi sighed, giving up on getting an answer. Instead, he motioned at a tree branch two trees over. "Look. A magpie. Try drawing that."

"Now you're just trying to distract me." Still, Daisuke focused on the bird and started sketching on a fresh page. It calmed him down and stilled his mind like Satoshi no doubt knew it would. Satoshi watched the bird with him. Daisuke tried to translate the puff of cream colored feathers and differentiate where the black cap changed from gray to blue down the bird's back. By the time the bird moved on, he had a solid sketch and middling detail that he would fill in later until he got it right. It was a sketch he would give to Satoshi later.

"Give me a bit more time to think," Daisuke said. The sketchbook felt heavy in his lap, but that was because they were both looking at it rather than at each other. Surprisingly, Dark was still a sleepy mass in the back of Daisuke's mind; none of the previous alarm had filtered through to him.

"Take what time you need." Satoshi stood, frowning to himself. "I'm attempting the change within the month, and then, well, then I'll plan from wherever that leaves me." He didn't say goodbye, just turned and walked away. Daisuke looked after him before flipping to a new sketch page.

When his pencil touched the paper, he began to sketch Satoshi, not as he was, but as the woman he could be, not changing much, just softening a line of his face here and adding a subtle curve there. In the end, Satoshi as a girl wouldn't actually look much different than Satoshi as a guy, he thought. They would both be too thin and pale and deceptively beautiful.

Daisuke ripped the drawing out and resolved to hide it somewhere Dark would never see it.

He still didn't know how to answer Satoshi, and he hated himself a bit because the answer should have been easy to make.


	3. The Choice

There was a new peace in Satoshi's expression ever since the change, something that Daisuke attributed to the fact that Krad had been gone from the back of his mind since Satoshi's physical form had become female. It unnerved Dark, Daisuke knew, but seeing Satoshi relaxed—or at least as relaxed as he ever got—felt right. He didn't know how much the change had hurt or what it must have been like—he'd been there for it, and Satoshi had passed out screaming and Daisuke had never been more terrified on his behalf, but he'd woken up almost smiling so it was okay. There were no physical problems either, and the change was permanent since it had split the artwork created for this purpose, its power spent on the transformation. Satoshi fit as a woman even as he didn't feel feminine at all, and Daisuke couldn't really explain it.

"Stop looking like I'll break," Satoshi said. His voice was only a little bit higher than before, still smooth and calm. His face was the slightest bit rounder, his wrists and waist and shoulders just a bit thinner. He had no bust to speak of and barely any hip, but he was shorter than before and that kept throwing Daisuke off. All in all, Satoshi looked healthier and that had been one of their goals.

"I know you won't break," Daisuke said. He didn't quite mean it though. He still had memories of seeing long lines of bruises against Satoshi's pale skin and red scabbed wounds from where Krad's wings had forced their way free.

They were in the park again, under an old maple tree. They preferred neutral meeting grounds even now. Summer cicadas buzzed and filled silences between them. Daisuke sketched. Satoshi watched and occasionally gave tips. In the park they were just two people, not Niwa and Hikari. It was nice to just be Daisuke, all of Daisuke, without having to hide his secrets. Satoshi already knew all of them.

Satoshi pushed his glasses up his nose and Daisuke's eyes caught on how the collar of his shirt shifted almost off his shoulder. Satoshi still wore his old clothing even though they were two or three sizes too big now. It made him look even more fragile than before when shirt cuffs dangle around his wrists or collars showed how thin he really was.

"I appear to be fertile," Satoshi said, blunt and to the point as ever. No warning, no leading in. "I saw a doctor yesterday."

Daisuke set aside the sketch book and ignored Dark bristling in his head like an angry cat. "You want an answer."

"It doesn't have to be now."

But Satoshi wanted the suspense to be over, Daisuke could tell. Satoshi, for all that he could plan and make a dozen contingencies on the fly to be flexible, preferred to know where things stood for any given thing. He liked cut and dry answers and Daisuke knew that if he told him that Daisuke didn't think he'd ever be able to go through with it, the matter would be dropped. Satoshi probably would never seek anyone else out for a relationship of any kind or start a family with anyone else either. It was a strange position to be in.

 _He's probably wanted in your pants the whole time_ , Dark said, voice edged with desperation in Daisuke's mind. _This is messed up. What about Riku?_

He'd had a fight with Dark on this topic several times already. It still made his heart ache. He loved Riku. He probably always would on some level. He wasn't sure she could love all of him.

 _Do you really think Hiwatari loves you?_

" _No_ ," Daisuke answered back, " _not the way I love Riku. But he feels something for me or we wouldn't have made it this far at all. And if I'm honest with myself, I feel something for him or I wouldn't be having this much trouble deciding what to do."_

 _No one knows if it will even work!_

" _We don't_." Daisuke closed his eyes against Satoshi's gaze, the bright summer day, and the park around him, focusing inward on Dark. His heart ached even more when he met Dark's eyes inside his mind. Dark was part of him. And Dark was someone else he loved. "I don't want you to go," Daisuke said to Dark. "I want to share the world with you and coexist. But some day you're going to go away anyway whether I want you to or not. And I'd see you in my son or my grandson but you'd never be me again."

"It's not that I stop being part of you completely," Dark argued. "I'd still be there with you."

"And you wouldn't disappear if we did this." Daisuke felt tired. He didn't want to have this argument. He didn't want to choose at all.

"I don't want to merge with Krad." Dark shuddered. "I don't care if it's what we were supposed to be, it just feels wrong."

"What should I do then, Dark?" They stood only a few feet apart in Daisuke's mind, but it felt like their souls couldn't have been further apart at that moment. "Krad is going to die out with Satoshi. What then? You'll be half of a whole until the Niwa family dies out too. Then you'll be gone too."

"What happens to us if we merge?"

"Hypothetically? You are returned to the artwork you were supposed to be."

Dark laughed and ran a hand through his hair. His hand was shaking, contradicting the rictus of a grin on his face. "I don't think we were ever one person, you know. We're part artwork, part imprints of those first ancestors, the artist and the thief. There's no saying how the curse could change when we merge or what our personality would be after."

"I don't want you to go," Daisuke said again. He wanted to cry, but his eyes were strangely dry. "But we both know that this can't last forever."

Dark curled in on himself, shutting Daisuke out. "I could hope, right? You said we could coexist. You let me in deeper than any of my other tamers. I knew it couldn't last, but I still hoped."

"I'm sorry."

Dark snorted. "No. You're human. And humans want to live."

"I'm going to say yes."

"And Riku?"

Daisuke still struggled with an answer for that. "I guess we'll have to tell her. All of it. About us."

"You mean after," Dark said. It was accusatory. Daisuke winced.

"Only because if I told her before, I know I wouldn't go through with it."

"She's going to dump you."

"I know." He felt bleak thinking of it already, but he also knew he wouldn't forgive himself any time soon just for thinking about Satoshi as much as he had let alone when it would come down to cheating on Riku. He hoped she got angry. He'd rather her hate him than focus on feeling hurt and sad. "Risa?"

"…Let me talk to her?"

"Of course." Daisuke reached out to touch Dark's shoulder and Dark pulled him into a hug, brief and back-aching.

Daisuke let himself fade out of his mind and into reality. Satoshi was waiting patiently. He stared up at the clouds, hands folded in his lap. It was strange to think that this was the most peaceful Daisuke could remember Satoshi looking. Daisuke wet his lips. Satoshi refocused his attention toward him.

"Yes." The word felt heavy on his lips. But then, it was a heavy moment. One word that could change everything in his life, from the surface to its deepest levels. Dark didn't say anything. It was almost worse that Dark wasn't protesting, wasn't going to fight this until the end. "Yes, I'll end the curse with you."

"Are you sure?" Satoshi leaned forward, eyes intent on Daisuke. "If you have any doubts, don't move forward with this."

Doubts? How could he not have doubts? How could Satoshi be so sure about everything? Daisuke wasn't sure. He had never understood the curse in its entirety anyway. All he knew was that Dark would be leaving soon anyway with Krad suppressed, and that if they didn't do this, there would never again be a chance to make things right. And even if it wasn't a sure outcome, it wouldn't be right to not make an effort to fix what their ancestors had broken. Daisuke sighed.

"I don't know how this is going to work," he said. "We're sixteen. My family still hates you. Your papers still say you're a man and even if you've graduated college, I haven't." He shook his head. "You have a baby and then what?"

"I raise it," Satoshi said like it was obvious. "And determine if Krad and Dark have fused and can be sealed away."

"If it's a girl?"

Satoshi's nose scrunched up a little bit. "I try again."

Daisuke wondered is Satoshi knew how detached a statement that was, and felt vaguely worried about Satoshi's potential parenting skills. "That's a lot of commitment. From both of us."

"I'm only asking you to be a sperm donor," Satoshi said.

Daisuke scoffed. "If you think for a minute that I wouldn't want to be involved with a hypothetical child I'm blood related to, you don't know me. No, I'd be helping you raise it."

"Niwa…"

"And you and my family would have to learn to get along because I know Mom would want to babysit even if the child would be related to you too." Daisuke threw up his hands. "That's fourteen years and nine months to be sure if this worked, and that's providing the baby is a boy."

Satoshi's calm expression had been replaced with something between irritation and confusion. "Niwa, I'm mentally prepared to devote the next decade and a half to a child."

Daisuke stared him down. Because really? He didn't think even people who planned for years to have children turned out to be as prepared as they thought. Yuuji from class had mentioned his older sister having a child after three years of being married and still calling home every few hours the first few weeks panicking about something or other.

Satoshi looked away. "There's time to learn everything I need to know before a baby would be born."

"And money?"

"Niwa, I have a job with the police and a trust fund from clan inheritance."

"Well you won't be able to work if you're in the later part of being pregnant or having a baby, and how the heck would you explain suddenly being a girl? You're physically smaller than you were before."

"I can always relocate and build a new identity," Satoshi snapped.

"Well hopefully you won't have to!"

They stared each other down, both breathing a bit heavier than they started the conversation. Daisuke crossed his arms, rubbing his palms up and down his biceps. He didn't really need Dark's voice in his head telling him to calm down to know he was skirting around the edge of a meltdown, but it helped as a distraction.

Satoshi rested his hands on his knees. "Fine. You want to be part of the child's life. That's acceptable."

"Good."

"Niwa." Satoshi sighed, sharp and frustrated. "We can discuss the details in depth later. I even promise to meet with your family, although I can't see that going well. The question remains, can you do this?" He paused and there was a waver of uncertainty between them. "Do you _want_ to do this?"

It was the slight emphasis on 'want' that had Daisuke's heart speeding up. Want. _There's no doubt that the Commander 'wants' to_ , Dark said, but it was more tired than snide. _You should know how you feel by now._ But Daisuke, even if there were flashes of moments where he thought he could want Satoshi, wasn't sure he wanted the way Satoshi implied. But if he stopped and looked, really looked…

He could already admit that Satoshi was attractive. Man or woman, there was something graceful and untouchable about him. But crossing that boundary to touch? Following the line of that collarbone under Satoshi's shirt or the slight swell of hip? It was a little alarming to feel a similar adrenaline rush at the thought as he got sneaking somewhere he shouldn't be.

"Yes." Daisuke didn't think too hard about this. The words were true. And so long as he didn't think too hard, he wouldn't panic. He wouldn't get second thoughts. That didn't mean he might not have regrets later.

"Truly?"

"Yes." It was frustrating that Satoshi kept asking like Daisuke would take it back, so Daisuke didn't think too hard and did what felt right. He closed the gap between them and kissed him. Somewhere in his mind, Dark was fleeing to the space deep enough where he wouldn't watch this, but Daisuke was preoccupied with how Satoshi's lips were dry and just the slightest bit chapped and how they parted when he gasped. Belatedly, Daisuke realized he had one hand in Satoshi's hair and the other resting on the bench between Satoshi's knees. It would look indecent if anyone walked by. He pulled back and Satoshi followed for a few centimeters. "I…" Daisuke's voice broke and he coughed. It felt like his face was burning. "Like I said, that's not going to be a problem."

"Oh." There was a moment of open vulnerability on his face before he had control again. Satoshi leaned back, putting as much distance between them as the bench would allow. "Soon then. Not today. But soon. I'll call you."

Daisuke was tempted to ask how Satoshi would know when it was the right time, but it would probably lead to a long explanation that would be uncomfortable for both of them, and he didn't really need to know anyway. "Okay."

Satoshi nodded and stood. Uncharacteristically, he hesitated. "Niwa."

"Mm?"

Satoshi reached out and touched his shoulder, likely going for intimate but only managing awkward. "Thank you." The hand was gone as quickly as it had reached out and Satoshi walked away.

"There's nothing to thank me for," Daisuke said to the empty bench and the hush of leaves.

* * *

 _(Original Author's note from LJ): AN: For the comment_fic community. It was pretty long so I decided to post it separately. I'm not sure where to end this one. On one hand, it should have been silly with the prompt being what it is. Instead my brain took it serious and well, this is the result. On the other, it is serious, and I could keep writing it. But I don't really feel like writing kidfic at the moment and that's kiiiind of where it's headed. I have enough unfinished long kidfic tucked away, thanks. If I continued this they'd either have one kid or six, because it could only go 'yay, we have a son' or 'two daughters...ok, try again, wtf why twin sons? what does this mean? wait, how am i pregnant again, i was done with the twins, why am i having twins again? no. no more kids. why is this body so fertile make it stop.' ...Probably best for the world that I don't write that. But the hypothetical children would be the most gender identity aware kids, I mean yeesh "Kaa-san's a man in a woman's body. No really, my mom's a guy. Does this make Dad bi?"_

 _Still feel it is best for the world if I do not go head first into a kidfic for this universe. I already have at least 2 WIP kidfics for other series. I do not need another. Still, this was interesting to write and I hope someone gets enjoyment out of it. :) (and if someone wants to write that kidfic, heck, go for it. Go for the whole mess of awkward that this universe promises to be.)_


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